Little Tiny Darlingtonia

Here's a current photo (March 30, 2007) of the regrowth of a near-mature Darlingtonia californica that I almost killed last year by piling so much long-fiber sphagnum moss on top of the growing medium surface (and plant crown) that the pitchers rotted from the crown up.

Once the plant's crown (its growing point) is gone, the plant is gone (or so I thought). However, this brave little plant decided to put up tiny green filaments from its roots, and now, after winter dormancy, it is beginning to grow again. I'm lucky it survived my well-intentioned but bad care.
:-)

Darlingtonia are reputed to like cool growing medium and to detest warm or hot conditions beneath the soil, which is why I covered the medium with long-fiber sphagnum moss in the first place. But it just caused rot. Now I have removed all the soil-surface mulch/dressing of long-fiber sphagnum and the plant is growing great (so far). My one concession to the cool-roots guideline for this species is that I planted it in an insulating polyurethane foam pot. This keeps the medium from overheating when the sun hits the side of the growing container. I'm very happy with insulating foam planters and use them for just about everything that is not planted in a traditional porous red clay pot (such as my orchids).

Steve

Nice little baby. I've grown Darlingtonia before. I had mine in LFS. I had to give them away to somebody who was in a better position to provide proper care for them. They were too much work and too much of an inconvenience for this house... and my husband did not appreciate having to check ice cube trays to differentiate between which were for the plants and which were for people. Poor husband!

I can understand your husband's feelings. :-)

I don't like to go to "heroic measures" myself to keep a plant, no matter how wonderful that plant may be. So with this Darlingtonia californica I'm probably not going to use rainwater ice cubes on the surface, nor refrigerate the water I pour into the medium, nor add any temperature buffering "mulch" of some sort to the soil surface again, etc.

If it lives with a minimal nod to its preference for not having its roots too hot, then I will be thrilled. If it struggles with the care I'm willing to give it and doesn't like the conditions I provide for it, I'll probably give it away (if it doesn't die first). I _hope_ it survives and thrives. I'll never forget the awesome sight of seeing thousands of this plant growing in its very limited natural territory (I was in Oregon, US at the time), so I have a fondness for it. But if I can't grow it well, then I will admit that I tried but it was just a bad idea. :-)

Yaa, I think it has something to do with a bug appearing in his Coke. He wasn't all that happy.

I never tried the insulated pots. They weren't readily available a few years ago and to be quite blunt, I never considered them being used to better insulate a plant's roots. Great idea if you really think about it.

The other non-spousal related problem with them was the eastern exposure they required. Not too many spots in my home to place the little darlings so it ended up on the floor by the atrium doors to the back yard. That was a disaster waiting to happen and I had one dog that kept ripping it out of the pot so we could play "chase". I knew the destiny of those plants here so I gave them away before they were mutilated or worse. The writing was on the wall and I'm not into heroic measures either. It's sink or swim for the most part here.